By DAVID B. CARUSOAssociated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) -- A Manhattan skyscraper in one of the most security-conscious parts of the city has become the scene of an unlikely missing persons mystery.

Police are trying to figure out what happened to a cleaning woman who vanished midway through her shift Tuesday evening at an office tower a few hundred feet from the World Trade Center reconstruction site.

Eridania Rodriguez, 46, punched in for work at 2 Rector Street around 5 p.m. She donned her blue uniform, chatted with other after-hours employees and was last seen on security cameras around 7 p.m., according to a lawyer for her family, Daniel Ferreira.

Then, she disappeared.

The building's cameras never recorded her leaving the skyscraper. She didn't meet up with co-workers for her regular subway ride home to Manhattan's Washington Heights section. Her purse and street clothes remained in her locker.

The woman's family is distraught and fears the worst, Ferreira said.

"She had been complaining about a guy at the building who made her kind of nervous," he said. "And she worked on floors that had been empty."

He said Rodriguez is married with several children. One of her brothers is Victor Martinez, a top-ranked professional bodybuilder.

Police quietly sealed off the building Wednesday morning to hunt for clues. They found no trace of the missing woman. Workers were finally allowed back in shortly before noon.

"It's a mind blower. How do you go missing here?" said Rob Ross, an executive assistant in the studio of architect Daniel Libeskind, who moved to the tower after getting the commission to redesign ground zero.

Security in the building is typical for the financial district. Employees need identification cards to enter. Security cameras cover every entrance and many public areas. Every visitor is photographed before they are allowed up from the lobby.

Officials at the company that operates the building, Stellar Management, declined to comment.

Built in 1909, the skyscraper has more than 400,000 square feet of interior space and rises 26 stories. Besides Studio Daniel Libeskind, the building's tenants include the architectural firm NBBJ, several law firms and, until recently, a division of the city's transportation department.

Logged

" Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." - Daniel Moynihan

Missing cleaning woman may be in landfillWoman mysteriously disappears while at work in NYC skyscraper

NEW YORK - Police believe that a cleaning woman who vanished from a Manhattan high-rise may be dead and that her body could turn up in a Pennsylvania landfill.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Friday that investigators "fear the worst" in the disappearance of Eridania (ehr-ee-DAH'-nee-uh) Rodriguez.

The 46-year-old Rodriguez was last seen Tuesday evening in an office tower in lower Manhattan.

Police suspect the woman was killed and dumped in the trash. They expanded their search Friday to a Pennsylvania landfill where the building's garbage is taken.

Rodriguez punched in for work at 2 Rector Street around 5 p.m. on Tuesday. She donned her blue uniform, chatted with other after-hours employees and was last seen on security cameras around 7 p.m., according to a lawyer for her family, Daniel Ferreira.

Then, she disappeared.

The building's cameras never recorded her leaving the skyscraper. She didn't meet up with co-workers for her regular subway ride home to Manhattan's Washington Heights section. Her purse and street clothes remained in her locker.

Family fears the worst

The woman's family is distraught, Ferreira said.

"She had been complaining about a guy at the building who made her kind of nervous," he said. "And she worked on floors that had been empty."

He said Rodriguez is married with several children. One of her brothers is Victor Martinez, a top-ranked professional bodybuilder.

Police quietly sealed off the building Wednesday morning to hunt for clues. They found no trace of the missing woman. Workers were finally allowed back in shortly before noon.

An unlikely disappearance

"It's a mind blower. How do you go missing here?" said Rob Ross, an executive assistant in the studio of architect Daniel Libeskind, who moved to the tower after getting the commission to redesign ground zero.

Security in the building is typical for the financial district. Employees need identification cards to enter. Security cameras cover every entrance and many public areas. Every visitor is photographed before they are allowed up from the lobby.

Officials at the company that operates the building, Stellar Management, declined to comment.

Built in 1909, the skyscraper has more than 400,000 square feet of interior space and rises 26 stories. Besides Studio Daniel Libeskind, the building's tenants include the architectural firm NBBJ, several law firms and, until recently, a division of the city's transportation department.

Do they have a 26 story tall garbage shoot ? what happens when garbage or a body hits the bottom of that shoot ?? maybe she is still in that shoot ? can a person be put into such a shoot ? is the door big enough ?Or are they saying somebody rolled her out in a cleaning cart inside the towel bag. A Janitor ?and then that somebody put the body in a dumpster ? that dumpster was picked up by a front loading garbage truck ? and she was compacted in the back of that said truck ?and that truck opened its back doors and pushed out the garbage into a pile of trash at the landfill site and she was not visible ? and then a tractor came along and spread the pile out flat and she still was not visible ? and that more trash was put over the top of her and people walking around the landfill did not see her and the tractor driver who sits over the top of them did not see her ? and then dirt was added over the top of that to finish out the day and ready to start over tomorrow? Even with landfills being separated of all recyclables glass/plastic/wood/paper/tires/electronics/batteries/metals and people walking all through the garbage looking for this stuff before the dirt top is added ?Yep,,,It happens all the time. People bodies are found in landfills.

Police were still searching basement floors of the skyscraper near the World Trade Center site on Friday. They also planned to return Saturday and do a third sweep of the entire building using search dogs.

New York Police Department detectives also had been dispatched to Keystone Sanitary Landfill in Dunmore, Pa. — the dump used by the building's garbage collector — to look for a body.

Security in the building is typical for the financial district. Employees need identification cards to enter. Security cameras cover every entrance and many public areas. Every visitor is photographed before they are allowed up from the lobby.

Officials at the company that operates the building, Stellar Management, declined to comment.

Built in 1909, the skyscraper has more than 400,000 square feet of interior space and rises 26 stories. Besides Studio Daniel Libeskind, the building's tenants include the architectural firm NBBJ, several law firms and, until recently, a division of the city's transportation department.__________________

Eridania Rodriguez, 46, of Manhattan, was last seen on Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at the office building she works at on Rector Street.

Police have questioned a person of interest in the case of a Manhattan mother who went missing Tuesday, and they're now treating the case as a homicide, sources tell WCBSTV.com.

Eridania Rodriguez, 46, of 107 Ellwood Street, was last seen around 7 p.m. Tuesday at an office building on Rector Street where she works as a janitor. She punched in for her shift, worked a few hours and was last seen on security cameras, but a family lawyer says the building's cameras never recorded her leaving the skyscraper.

Her purse and street clothes were still in her locker.

Relatives tell CBS 2 that the married mother of three, who was also a grandmother, didn't feel safe on the job and that a man who worked inside the building was scaring her, offering unwanted advances. She had recently told her bosses she was going to leave her job because she feared for her safety.

"The floor that my mom was working on, he was there, and he used to stare at her so she wasn't feeling comfortable," Rodriguez's daughter, Yan Iris Figueroa, told CBS 2. "She told one of her co-workers that she works with and I think she told the supervisor. The supervisor spoke to him and he had to move out of the building."

That incident occurred about a month ago, but Figueroa said her mother told her and her sister that she saw the man a week ago. Now detectives are believed to have zeroed in on that former co-worker.

Detectives have questioned the co-worker at the first precinct since yesterday. Sources told CBS 2 they felt he was lying, but they still did not have hard evidence. He got a lawyer, and they had to let him go.

There is no word yet as to what caused investigators to believe the woman was murdered.

Neighbors describe Rodriguez as a hardworking woman and said they were worried about her.

"Everybody is very sad in this neighborhood," said Jose Bello, who lived near Rodriguez. "She's a very nice person, I've known her a long time."

Rodriguez is the sister of Victor Martinez, a top-ranked professional bodybuilder.

Anyone with information regarding this case can call Crime Stoppers and remain anonymous at 1-800-577-TIPS.

Body found at NY skyscraper where woman vanishedJuly 11, 2009 NEW YORK—A body hidden inside a Manhattan skyscraper where a cleaning woman vanished four days ago was found Saturday morning.

Police spokesman Paul Browne said the corpse was found just before 9 a.m., stuffed in an air conditioning duct in a utility room on the 12th floor of the tower where Eridania Rodriguez vanished Tuesday.

Police had searched the office building from top to bottom every day since Rodriguez disappeared, but hadn't turned up anything. Investigators had been sure, though, that she had not walked out alive.

The skyscraper is in a high-security zone next to ground zero. Cameras cover every door. They recorded Rodriguez entering the building and working part of her shift Tuesday, but didn't show her leaving.

Authorities didn't immediately confirm the identity of the corpse, but it was presumed to be Rodriguez, who was 46 and lived in Manhattan. She was married with several children.

Police have no suspect in her disappearance.

Before the discovery, dozens of police officers with search dogs, including bloodhounds, convened at the Rector Street tower for yet another comprehensive search of the massive building.

The building has 26 stories and more than 400,000 square feet of interior space and plenty of places to hide, including some floors that were empty and a sub-basement partially flooded with water.

Body of missing mom Eridania Rodriguez found in air conditioning duct of building where she vanished

Updated Saturday, July 11th 2009, 12:25 PM The mystery of a Manhattan mom who disappeared from her office-cleaning job ended with a tragic discovery Saturday: her body in an air conditioning duct, police said.

Eridania Rodriguez's remains were discovered at 8:50 a.m. between the 12th and 13th floors of 2 Rector St. after dozens of cops and sniffer dogs spent a second day searching.

The floor where her body was found is under construction.

A bad smell and missing ceiling tiles made search teams focus on the area, sources said. Shortly after the grisly discovery, police arrived at the family home in Inwood to break the news to Rodriguez's loved ones.

The 46-year-old was last seen alive Tuesday evening.

She was caught on surveillance video around 7 p.m. pushing a cleaning cart into an elevator, sources said.

She spoke with her daughter by telephone around the same time but did not show up for dinner with co-workers at 9 p.m. and was never seen leaving the building.

Her clothes and purse were found in a changing room. Police have questioned a building elevator operator, Joseph Pabon, but no one has been arrested.

Several hours after the discovery, Rodriguez's body was still inside building near Ground Zero while cops waited for crime scene investigators.

Joseph Pabon of Galveston Loop was under close watch by cops this afternoon after being questioned following the disappearance of Edriana Rodriguez, 46, of Manhattan. He has not been arrested or charged.

Pabon, 25, is a freight-elevator operator at 2 Rector St., the building where Ms. Rodriguez worked as a cleaning lady. Pabon inexplicably left work Tuesday night and had scratches on his arm, according to the New York Post. He has apparently retained a lawyer, also according to the Post.

Ms. Rodriguez was preparing to clean bathrooms on the fifth floor on Tuesday when she received odd instructions from an unknown man telling her to work on the eighth floor instead.

Coworkers found her mop, cart and hair clip on the eighth floor, but she was nowhere.

A body believed to be Ms. Rodriguez's was found this morning in a 12th floor air-conditioning duct in a utility room. The 12th floor is gutted and currently undergoing renovations, according to Police spokesman Paul Browne.

Eridania Rodriguez's body was found "fully-clothed" and "face-down" in a 12th floor duct at 2 Rector Street, the office building where Rodriguez worked as a cleaning woman. And the Daily News has these grisly details: "Her head wrapped like a mummy in heavy-duty yellow and black construction tape, police sources said...[Her] hands and legs had also been bound with tape before she was shoved into an eye-level air-conditioning duct."http://gothamist.com/2009/07/12/missing_womans_body_found_in_ac_duc.php

Logged

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware/Of giving your heart to a dog to tear -- Rudyard KiplingI'm with the majority of American's that voted for Hillary Clinton...and I am a registered Republican!

Body of Eridania Rodriguez, missing cleaning woman, found bound in tape and stuffed in air duct

Cops found the decomposing body of a missing Manhattan cleaning woman Saturday - her head wrapped like a mummy in heavy-duty yellow and black construction tape, police sources said.

Eridania Rodriguez's hands and legs had also been bound with tape before she was shoved into an eye-level air-conditioning duct on the 12th floor of 2 Rector St., where she worked, sources said.

Cops made the gruesome find on the fourth day of their desperate search for the mother of three.

They had spent Friday searching for Rodriguez - who was last seen on Tuesday evening at the building - in a Pennsylvania landfill.

Yesterday, an officer on a floor undergoing renovations at the building detected a foul odor and saw missing ceiling tiles.

Dozens of officers and search dogs arrived early yesterday to comb the 26-story building in search of the 46-year-old.

After the grisly discovery, police went to Rodriguez's Inwood home to notify her family.

"I'm devastated," her daughter, Yaniris Figueroa, 17, told the Daily News. "I'm still in a state of shock. I really don't feel well. How could someone have done this to my mom?"

Her brother, Victor Martinez, 35, said this was supposed to have been his sister's last week on the job because she was scared to work in the building.

"She didn't want to work there anymore because of the unsafe working conditions," he said. "She just wanted to leave."

Martinez, a champion bodybuilder from the Dominican Republic, said an employee at the building recently exposed himself to his sister.

The perv was transferred, but she was still spooked.

"She said she was afraid of being there. She said she was afraid of being alone," he said.

Rodriguez was caught on surveillance video around 7 p.m. wearing her uniform blue jumpsuit and pushing a cleaning cart into an elevator inside the building, sources said.

She spoke with her daughter by telephone around the same time, but did not show up for dinner with co-workers at 9 p.m. and was never seen leaving the building.

The woman's clothes and purse were found in her locker and her cleaning cart was abandoned on the eighth floor, causing cops to fear the worst.

Police questioned a building elevator operator - Joseph Pabon - on Thursday, but he was released after he asked for a lawyer.

Pabon, 26, cried when detectives asked him questions about the missing woman, sources said. He had visible scratches on his hands and arms, and couldn't explain why he left the building early Tuesday night, sources said.

Cops were outside Pabon's Staten Island home yesterday and pursued him when he drove away.

Pabon has prior arrests, including an April collar for allegedly punching and choking his girlfriend and smashing her windshield with a bowling ball.